Home video changed the world. The cultural and historical impact of the VHS tape was enormous. This film traces the ripples of that impact by examining the myriad aspects of society that were altered by the creation of videotape.
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Title: Rewind This! (2013)
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In the 1980s, few pieces of home electronics did more to redefine popular culture than the videocassette recorder. With it, the film and television media were never the same as the former gained a valuable new revenue stream and popular penetration while the latter's business model was forever disrupted. This film covers the history of the device with its popular acceptance opening a new venue for independent filmmakers and entrepreneurs. In addition, various collectors of the now obsolete medium and its nostalgically esoteric fringe content are profiled as well. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
"Rewind This!" is a documentary about VCRs, VHS tapes and the people who collect them. The story begins with the war between the Betamax and VCR formats, which of course the latter won despite the fact that Betamax was a far superior technology – but it could only play tapes of an hour or less, so any movie would need to be on more than one tape, a design flaw that killed it fairly quickly. Once VCR had won, people started discovering the joys of being able to watch movies at home, at the time of one's choosing – or at least they did once the price of the machine and the tapes (originally priced at $99!) came down. The film interviews a plethora of modern-day fans of the format (my personal favourite was a woman who organizes her tapes by the dominant colour of the box) as they describe falling in love with video, making home movies themselves and searching for old tapes at flea markets and the like – some collectors have over 100,000 of the clunky boxes! And, of course, the film includes a variety of scenes from videotapes, especially that genre of straight-to-video creations, which are a hoot to see. Definitely made me want to hunt up our old VHS tapes that are slowly rotting somewhere in the basement!